I know it's been awhile since I've been on here, but I've been super busy at work and trying to squeeze in some house hunting with FI whenever we get a chance...and that leads me to my topic lol. First off, we had just started the house hunt back in August, and a week later FI was laid off from work, so that was a pretty big blow. We took a step back to figure out what we wanted to do, and decided to see what we could afford on my salary alone. Late September we started looking again - mostly at estate sales, and most of those needed a LOT of work (sewage leak in the basement, anyone?).
Then came this adorable little bungalow that we fell in love with before we even went to go see it. It has 2-3 bedrooms, 1 bath, no AC, and oil heat (which I'm not too crazy about). The kitchen is also dated, and I'm pretty sure it still has the original windows from when the house was built in 1917 (ouch). We put an offer on that house, and the seller was only willing to come down a little bit in price - he is currently priced about $15k above the comps, and I refuse to pay any more than I have to in this market. Apparently it was the first offer the house had received since it went on the market in June. The seller's agent actually contacted us last week saying that if we were to come back with another offer, the seller would probably be more willing to deal. We haven't put in another offer yet.
So yesterday, FI and I went to go see a 3 br, 2 bath rancher that is also very cute - it has central AC, gas heat, nice size bedrooms, etc. It's also very competitively priced. However, it has a tiny basement (FI and I both have a lot of crap to store), but it does have a crawl space to fill out the rest of the basement, and also a crawl space attic. Everything is new and up to date: kitchen, bathrooms, etc. It's more $$ than the bungalow, but we wouldn't have to do any sort of updating (provided an inspection comes up okay).
It really seems like a no brainer to put an offer on the rancher, right? That's where it gets weird for FI and I. We both liked the rancher, and both admitted that it would be better to have for the long run, but we didn't fall in love with it like we did the bungalow. The bungalow definitely had more character, but it would also be a lot of money to update - something we don't have a lot of right now. I'm going back for a second look at the rancher today with my mom, and hopefully FI and I can figure something out.
Sorry that was so long, I've just been in house-hunting mode for the last month and a half, and we just don't know what to do right now.
